In this article

What is the ribbon?

The ribbon contains the commands and other menu items that were on menu and toolbars in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier. The ribbon is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task.

Primary features of the ribbon

The ribbon as it appears on the left side of the Home tab in PowerPoint 2010.

1. A tab in the ribbon, in this case the Home tab. Each tab relates to a type of activity, such as inserting media or applying animations to objects.

2. A group on the Home tab, in this case the Font group. Commands are organized into logical groups and collected together under the tabs.

3. An individual button or command in the Slides group, in this case the New Slide button.

Other features of the ribbon

Other things that you might see on the ribbon are contextual tabs, galleries, and dialog box launchers.

1. A gallery, in this case the shapes gallery in the Drawing group. Galleries are rectangular windows or menus that present an array of related visual choices.

2. A contextual tab, in this case the Picture Tools tab. To reduce clutter, some tabs are shown only when they are needed. For example, the Picture Tools tab is shown only if you insert a picture on a slide, and then select the picture.

3. A Dialog Box Launcher, in this case, one that starts the Format Shape dialog box.